This invention relates to gaming systems and methods and, more particularly, this invention relates to sequential gaming systems and methods.
Incentives such as, for example, extended play, bonuses, etc. are well known manners of enticing gaming patrons or players to continue play on a particular electronic gaming device. Unfortunately, these simple incentive techniques do not effectively encourage players to play multiple gaming devices. To the contrary, these incentives are typically designed to encourage players to repeatedly play a particular gaming device at a particular venue. As a result, known gaming systems and methods make it very difficult for casino operators and the like to encourage or to promote the use of a wide variety of gaming activities by casino patrons, particularly new gaming activities or machines with which players are not generally familiar. Furthermore, existing gaming systems and methods do not generally enable a particular casino or venue to establish promotional activities or to establish incentives to engage in gaming activities at multiple venues or casinos, some or all of which may be owned by different business entities and some or all of which may be geographically dispersed. In other words, known gaming systems and methods typically do not enable venues or casino operators to establish more complex player incentives and promotional activities that involve interrelationships between multiple gaming activities and interrelationships between multiple venues.
A gaming system may include a communication network, a portable data storage device having information associated with a player stored therein and a plurality of gaming units communicatively coupled to the communication network. Each of the gaming units may include an interface for reading and for storing information within the portable data storage device. The gaming system may also include a network computer communicatively coupled to the communication network and the plurality of gaming units. The network computer may be programmed to enable the player to play a group of the plurality of gaming units in a particular sequence based on the information associated with the player stored within the portable data storage device.
In accordance with another aspect, a gaming system may include a communication network, a portable data storage device having gaming information stored therein and a plurality of gaming activities communicatively coupled to the communication network. Each of the gaming activities may include an interface for accessing the gaming information in the portable data storage device. Additionally, a server may be communicatively coupled to the communication network and the plurality of gaming activities. The server may be programmed to direct the player to play a group of the plurality of gaming activities in a sequence based on the gaming information stored on the portable data storage device.
In yet another aspect, a gaming device may include a memory, a video display, an input device and a processor communicatively coupled to the memory, the video display and the processor. The processor may be programmed to receive information pertaining to a player via the input device and to send a portion of the received information to a computer via a communication network. The processor may be programmed to perform a video gambling game in accordance with a sequence of gaming activities that is generated by the computer based on the received information.
In still another aspect, a method of gaming may read data pertaining to a player from a portable data storage device that is proximate to a gaming unit, send a portion of the data pertaining to the player to a system server via a communication network, and determine a gaming sequence. The method may also send configuration information based on the gaming sequence from the system server to the gaming unit via the communication network, initiate play of a game that is part of the gaming sequence and perform a win evaluation of the game upon completion of the game. Still further, the method may accumulate win data associated with game, send the accumulated win data to the system server via the communication network and determine at the system server whether the gaming sequence has been completed based on the accumulated win data. Additionally, the method may provide a clue to the player based on progress of the player through the gaming sequence.
In still another aspect, a method of gaming may receive player information from one of a plurality of networked gaming activities, generate a gaming sequence based on the received player information and send configuration information based on the generated gaming sequence to the one of the plurality of networked gaming activities. Further, the method may receive accumulated win information from the one of the plurality of networked gaming activities and send information pertaining to a next gaming activity in the generated gaming sequence to the one of the plurality of networked gaming activities.
The features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the detailed description of various embodiments, which is made with reference to the drawings, a brief description of which is provided below.